"Aldi should comply with Ireland's Retail Planning Guidelines instead of moaning about people legitimately objecting as it regularly flaunts the Government's planning strategy to deliver sustainable retail development and vibrant towns and villages," RGDATA Director General Tara Buckley stated in response to this Irish Times Report.

"RGDATA campaigned for the introduction of Retail Planning Guidelines and we make no apologies for seeking to ensure that they are adhered to," says Tara Buckley, Director General RGDATA. "The Guidelines are there to promote sustainable retail development, competition, choice, and vibrant towns and villages. There are too many towns in Ireland that are suffering as a result of unsuitable, unsustainable, out of town, edge of town and greenfield site retail developments when there are many vacant sites and empty shops, banks and other buildings in the town centre. We must prioritise these sites before permitting out of town, stand alone shops."

The Public Health Alcohol Bill has been published and is expected to come before the Dail to be passed into law before the end of January. The Bill includes the revised amendments on Structural Separation and the change from one year to two years before the new regulations impacting on mixed traders come into place. Click here to read the Bill

Please take two minutes to complete the survey. As many respondents as possible are needed as the information this survey will provide is critical to launch the campaign. Please submit by this Friday, 12th January. Click here for the survey.

A new scheme to turn commercial premises into residential units announced in December will be reviewed by the Joint Oireachtas Committee early this year. The proposed regulation is aimed at facilitating the change of use of certain types of vacant buildings to bring them back into productive use as homes. Further details are available here.

Entitlement to benefit from these public holidays is governed by the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997. All full-time employees are automatically entitled to the public holiday benefits and all part time employees, who have worked at least 40 hours in the five weeks ending on the day before the public holiday are also entitled to benefit for the public holiday.

Once the employee qualifies for the public holiday, the amount of benefit given for the public holiday depends on whether or not the employee is normally rostered to work the public holiday.

In respect of each public holiday, an employee is entitled to one of the following:

A paid day off on the day of the public holiday, or

An additional day’s pay, or

A paid day off within a month of the public holiday, or

An extra day’s annual leave

1. Employees who are normally required to work on a day in which the public holiday falls are entitled to receive one of the four benefits mentioned above.

2. Employees who are not normally required to work on the day in which a public holiday falls are entitled to receive one fifth of their normal weekly rate.

In addition, if the employee works on the public holiday, they get paid for the hours worked as well as either 1 or 2 above, depending on whether they normally work on that day or not.

The Amendments proposed by the Government will not address the concerns raised by local independent shops – you need to get this message to Senators before November 8.

Click here to read the Government's proposed amendments to Section 20 Structural Separation.Click here to read the Department of Health's briefing note on the proposed amendments to Section 20.Click here to read the Oireachtas Members Briefing on the Public Health Alcohol Bill;Click here to read the Department's Facts about Alcohol sheet.